


Rushing Headlong

by potentiality_26



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Hugs, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 23:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20016472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: The apocalypse-that-wasn't was still fresh in Aziraphale's mind, and he spent the drive mainly luxuriating in the ‘still here’ of it all.  That sweet shop down the way he had always liked?  Still here.  The stationary shop he often patronized?  Still here.  More importantly, his own shop, just waiting for him to return of an evening?  Still here.  And- more importantly still- Crowley in the car next to him, obeying the rules of the road for once?  Still here.  Everything could go back to normal.But then, even through that contented haze, a niggling voice in the back of his mind turned strident and began to sound awfully like Gabriel.  It wanted to know just how likely to go back to normal everything really was.Things are changing a little too fast for Aziraphale's taste.





	Rushing Headlong

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about tagging this for the book too, but I haven't read it in fifteen years and need to be honest about what this is. The TV adaptation was great fun and I'm getting on that train. Fills my 100fandoms table prompt #12 (new) and my hc_bingo "hugs" square. 
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

They spent a long time over dinner that evening, and by the end of it Aziraphale was that pleasant shade of almost drunk where it was difficult to tell how much was the wine and how much was the food- and how much was the company. He felt so nice that he didn’t bother sobering up; after all, Crowley had and he was driving.

The apocalypse-that-wasn't was still fresh in Aziraphale's mind, and he spent the drive mainly luxuriating in the ‘still here’ of it all. That sweet shop down the way he had always liked? Still here. The stationary shop he often patronized? Still here. More importantly, his own shop, just waiting for him to return of an evening? Still here. And- more importantly still- Crowley in the car next to him, obeying the rules of the road for once? Still here. Everything could go back to normal.

But then, even through that contented haze, a niggling voice in the back of his mind turned strident and began to sound awfully like Gabriel. It wanted to know just how likely to go back to normal everything really was.

Everything _wasn’t_ normal.

Normal had been tossed unceremoniously out the window and replaced by a shiny new something that was almost the same, but not quite. Aziraphale was happy enough to explore and accept those little changes- what worried him at the moment was a single big one. For now, the great game was on hold. For now, they were going to be left alone. Knowing that, there was nothing Aziraphale would like better than for things between himself and Crowley to likewise return to a state of more-or-less-as-before. But did Crowley really feel the same?

“Crowley,” he said finally. “If you could do... well... _anything_ , what would you do?”

Crowley brought the Bentley to a rather screeching halt. Aziraphale looked around and discovered that they were parked just outside his shop. He could have sworn they were further away than that, which did not promise well. “Anything, angel?” Crowley asked. He continued to grip the steering wheel as if he was driving, hands turning remarkably white.

“Well. Yes. After all, what’s stopping you now that- oh. Oh my.”

Crowley’s hands had left the steering wheel. One of them had wrapped itself around Aziraphale’s jacket lapel and pulled. The other wound up somewhere in the vicinity of his waist. Aziraphale’s nose bumped against Crowley’s shoulder. The hand on his lapel slid up to the back of his neck and stayed there.

It took Aziraphale a while to piece these minutiae together well enough to give the situation a name. He was half turned toward Crowley in his seat and he was being... held. That wasn’t quite back to normal, but it wasn’t unpleasant either. Aziraphale thought that the seatbelt ought to be choking him right about now, and that Crowley's sunglasses should be poking the side of his face, but neither was happening and he didn't even know which of them that minor miracle was coming from. It was disorienting to say the least, and decidedly not normal. 

Then again, Crowley had worked out that Aziraphale died without knowing who did it or- more importantly- if it might be permanent. There hadn’t yet been leisure to really address that. Perhaps it was normal-ish. Survive near death experience, hug, regroup. Aziraphale let his own hands, previously hanging uselessly at his sides, come up to Crowley’s back, his shoulders. He considered a reassuring pat.

He was still considering it when Crowley’s head turned slightly and his lips were pressed to Aziraphale’s hair. For a moment Aziraphale thought it was probably a mistake, or a coincidence- mouth there, head there, some contact bound to happen- but then it happened again, and again and again. They were definitely kisses and definitely veering away from normal at an alarming rate- or so Aziraphale concluded as the lips hit his temple and then his cheek. How much he wanted to see where they went next slammed up against a brick wall of how much he wanted to see where they went next. He jerked back. 

The wiry arms around him instantly released. “Sorry,” Crowley said, and _that_ wasn't normal either. 

Aziraphale said, “I need to think about this.”

Crowley’s head landed back against the headrest. “Right.”

“I need time.”

“Right.”

Aziraphale stumbled out of the car, righted himself, and felt very sober indeed as he headed toward his shop. He was aware that Crowley thought he took too long to come around to things. It was true, for instance, that he resisted certain trends because they simply didn't seem right to him. This resistance had, at one time, extended to the printing press- and look how _that_ turned out. And then there was that business with the holy water.

But the truth was that Aziraphale very easily felt rushed into things. And sometimes he even felt he _had_ rushed into things. Headlong. He hadn’t even had a century to work on the idea that he loved Crowley, so much it hurt, when he wasn’t even meant to _like_ him. And now, with no one watching, they could have as many lunches together as they pleased and be friends if they wanted, and Aziraphale _wanted_. But Crowley’s kisses in his hair felt like something else, and he wanted that too, but... but even if he had a few more centuries to think about it- even if he had sixty more centuries to think about it- he would still feel like he was rushing headlong into something dangerous, because often just having lunch with Crowley felt like being devoured. Not that he had thought Crowley was particularly interested in devouring him. It was a sad assumption, but now- he thought- perhaps also a comforting one. So long as there was no possibility of Crowley feeling the same way, there was also no possibility of doing anything about it. No possibility of anything changing too much. No possibility of tossing normal aside and stepping out into the unknown once more. 

Aziraphale stopped. He was aware that the Bentley was not gone. It hadn’t even moved. He turned around and got back in the car. Crowley, he noted as he slid into the seat, looked surprised. Then he hadn’t lingered because he had been so sure Aziraphale would come back. Was it petty to be pleased about that?

Probably.

“The thing is,” Aziraphale said, as if neither the embrace nor his not-entirely-dignified exit had occurred, “you really could do anything. You could go to the stars after all, or-”

“I didn’t really mean _I_ should go,” Crowley said, a little harshly. His hands were back on the wheel and he was staring straight ahead. But he had taken his sunglasses off while he was alone, so Aziraphale could see his eyes. 

“No," Aziraphale agreed, just watching them. "I suppose you didn't. There was a ‘we’ in there, wasn’t there?”

“ _We_ doesn’t work very well if _you_ don’t-”

“No,” Aziraphale agreed again. “I suppose it doesn’t.” He cleared his throat. It was definitely petty, sitting here feeling like he’d swallowed a butterfly or seven over how Crowley hadn’t driven away because he... simply couldn’t. And how Aziraphale had said _you could have anything now_ and Crowley had as good as replied _can I have you?_ And he had been replying that for much longer than Aziraphale had been able to hear him.

And honestly, if instead of Satan tearing out of the depths it had been the Almighty descending, could he have done what Crowley did? Next to that, surely he could manage-

“I do, though!” he said, in a rush, in case he lost his nerve after all. “But I would rather stay here. I’m sure Alpha Centauri is very nice this time of year, but we went to a lot of trouble to save this place, and I am used to it here. And-”

Crowley turned his head, at last, to shoot Aziraphale a fond look.

“Look, can we start again?”

"Start what again? Everything?" Crowley waved a hand at their general surroundings. “Because we just let that train leave without us. Or did you mean with your question? Or-”

That was the closest to babbling Aziraphale had heard from Crowley in a while. Possibly ever.

It was terribly endearing.

“Let’s start with the hug,” Aziraphale said. It was nicer, this time, when Crowley reached for him and he was fully able to appreciate it. Crowley was very warm, and his hand returned to the back of Aziraphale’s neck, fingers sliding into his hair. Crowley nuzzled him, and kissed the side of his head again.

“Angel,” Crowley murmured against his ear. Crowley using that name for him had often felt, to Aziraphale, like one more thing that put distance between them. It didn’t feel like that now.

So it was Aziraphale who drew back, just a little, just enough to turn his head too and meet those lips. “You should come inside,” he said, after. And that was rushing- but suddenly he was horribly tired of taking his time.

And Crowley smiled, and Aziraphale thought he would learn to like the new normal. Perhaps almost as much as printed books. Perhaps...

Perhaps more.

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [dreamwidth](https://potentiality-26.dreamwidth.org).


End file.
